Chapter 3
Saturday and Sunday were quite possibly the longest days of my entire life. I was home alone with nothing to do and no one to hang out with. Well…I knew someone I could spend time with, but every time I found myself gravitating towards the phone, I forced myself to find something to distract myself.
Ryan came home late Sunday night. I was sitting on the couch reading a book with the television playing quietly for background noise when I heard the front door creak open quietly. When I looked up, I saw Ryan pulling his suitcase through the front door with a large smile on his face. I returned the smile and jumped up from my seat on the couch to help him with his bags.
"Welcome home!" I muttered and kissed his cheek. I felt like I was betraying Troy if I kissed him properly on the lips.
He laughed and handed me his carry-on bag. "It's good to be back. LA is so busy compared to this place. It almost drove me crazy."
I laughed and he smiled. Without thinking, I dipped my head and captured his lips with my own. We each dropped the bags in our hands as we stumbled backwards. I let out a gasp when my back connected with the wall, but his arms soon wound around my waist and held me close to him. His tender kisses drove me mad. They were so pure and innocent. So unlike his.
With the thought of Troy drifting through my head, I suddenly pulled away from Ryan and took a step back, coughing awkwardly. He sighed and opened his eyes quietly, looking quite ravished despite how delicate our kisses had been.
"You miss me much?" he said jokingly, his blue eyes sparkling happily.
I smiled sheepishly and shrugged, but inside I was wondering why I felt like I had after my times with Troy. Why did I feel like I had just been cheating? I wasn't in a relationship with Troy. I was with Ryan! So why did I feel so dirty after just kissing my boyfriend?
'Because you care about him…Maybe you even lo…' I shut the little voice in my head out before they could get any further, just like all the other thoughts my mind had sent my way when it came to the topic of Troy. I didn't care about him. I didn't even know him, and it was impossible to care about someone you barely even knew… Wasn't it?
Grumbling quietly under my breath, I grabbed the bags I had dropped onto the floor and headed upstairs to our bedroom, Ryan following closely behind. We dropped his things precariously on the floor in front of his dresser and changed into our pyjamas in an echoing silence.
When Ryan wrapped his arms around me from behind and started to kiss my neck, his hands wandering beneath my shirt and against my skin, I gently pushed him away and offered an apologetic smile.
"You must be tired from your flight," I muttered.
He frowned, and I could feel his eyes watching me as I crossed the room and crawled into bed. I was afraid that he wasn't going to follow, but after a couple of minutes I heard his feet patter across the floor and felt the bed sink beside me.
"G'night, Gabriella," Ryan whispered, kissing me gently on the cheek.
I sighed. "It's good to have you home again."
He laughed quietly and curled up to my side, and I wrapped an arm around his waist. Almost immediately, thoughts of Troy bombarded my mind and made me clench my eyes closed in aggravation. I wanted to pull away from Ryan but I knew that it would only make him even more confused than he already was. Instead, I dug into my mind and pulled out old thoughts and memories of Ryan. It helped to mute the Troy thoughts, even though they were still mostly predominant in my mind.
I didn't care. My handsome boyfriend was home and I was holding him in my arms. Everything else on the outside world could wait.
--
Wednesday came around and it found me sitting in the café on the corner (again), waiting for a certain blonde to show up (again) who was late (again). Ryan had gone out to the bar with his mates and I seized the opportunity to shut the voices in my head up without a second thought. My conscience kept telling me that I cared for Troy—that I really cared for him—when I knew that it was impossible to do so. I knew that, once I saw him today, all of my thoughts would stop because my conscience would realize that it had been wrong all along. I did not care about Troy. At all. Period.
The bells on the door jingled and I didn't even have to look up to know that it was Troy who had entered. His cheerful voice filled the small café as he greeted the elderly woman behind the counter by first name. When the legs of the chair across from me scrapped against the faux marble floor, I told myself not to look up, but myself didn't want to listen. My eyes lifted and I had to hold in a gasp when my eyes were met with smouldering hues of blue.
Every time I saw him, Troy looked different. Whether it was a change in his wardrobe or just a change in attitude, he most definitely wasn't the type to pick something and stick with it. I knew that the moment I had laid my eyes on him at the club, yet he never ceased to amaze me.
Today it had been a change in both wardrobe and attitude. Instead of looking neat and orderly like he usually did (which completely clashed with his personality, I thought), he was wearing a pair of artfully torn jeans and a plain black T-shirt with trainers. His usually emotional face seemed to be going into emotional overload as his eyes burned deeply into my own. The heat that radiated from his gaze made me sweat.
"Can I get you something to drink, Troy?"
The sound of the elderly old lady's voice pulled me and Troy out of our staring contest, and I was surprised to see that she was standing beside our table with a small notebook in her hands.
Troy smiled brightly and checked the list of drinks on oversized chalkboard over the woman's shoulder before he shrugged. "I don't think I'll take anything today, Cathy. Thank you, though."
The woman smiled brightly and nodded before she turned and walked away. Troy watched her retreating form for a couple of seconds before he turned his attention back onto me with a frown.
"Hey Gabriella. How are you doing?" he asked a tense and obviously fake smile on his face. He was already using all of his willpower to stay decent in public. This wasn't good.
I sighed. "I'm fine. How about you?"
He shrugged. "I've been better."
I sighed again and ran a hand back through my long curly hair. Wonderful. This conversation was getting nowhere, and the only way to get Troy to talk would be to take him somewhere private. Or, at least, somewhere more private than a tiny café.
I grabbed my strawberry smoothie from the table and stood up, smiling sadly when Troy looked at me in confusion. "Walk with me?"
He furrowed his brow and frowned, but followed nonetheless. We left the café and wandered through the streets of town in silence. I led the way into the park and found an isolated grove of trees where we could sit on the ground and talk in private. Even if we raised our voices, there was a good chance that no one would hear us.
I sat down on the soft grass in silence and took a sip from my smoothie, watching Troy expectantly. After a moment or two, he sighed and plopped down onto the ground beside me.
"You wanted something?" he muttered.
A sharp pain shot through me at the tone of his words. They were sharp and clipped…almost bitter. I never thought I would hear the angry sound come from Troy's mouth, but there it was. And it was directed at me.
I shook my head. "No. I just wanted to see you, 's all."
He snorted quietly and rolled his eyes. "So now you just want to see me." He laughed again. "I was wrong about you. You're not funny at all. You're just a heartless bitch who likes to mess with other people's heads."
I frowned and narrowed by eyes at him, angered by his harsh words. "You're not being fair, Troy."
"I'm not being fair? You're the one who has a boyfriend who insists that he loves, yet still comes running to me whenever he goes out of town and he starts feeling a little lonely." He was yelling by the time he got toward the end. "I'm not a whore, Gabriella!"
"Not a whore?" I laughed. "Who's the one that started feeling me up when all I wanted to do was bitch at you? Huh? Who's the one who was ready to fuck me right there on the bar? Who's the one who…—"
"That was before!" he shouted, interrupting me. "That was before I knew who you were…before I fell in love with you, Gabriella. So maybe you're right and I am a whore, but just know that the only person I've laid a hand on over the past two weeks has been you."
"You can't be in love with me!" I yelled. "You don't know anything about me. I could be a crazed axe murder for all that you know."
His eyes burned into mine. "And are you a crazed axe murder?"
I blinked and looked away from him, rubbing my head sheepishly. "Well, no but…—"
"Then what's the problem?" He sighed. "I do know you. You're just like me when I was twenty. All self-righteous…thinking you have everything in the world when you really have nothing. You're a brooder…a thinker…a loner. You don't think that anyone can possibly understand you because you can't even understand yourself. You're afraid to let new people into your life because you don't want to get hurt…"
My eyes widened and I felt my heart stop as Troy voiced all of my insecurities. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. Not even Ryan knew that I thought those kinds of things, and he knew practically everything about me. But it didn't end there. He went on and on until I quieted him by jumping on him and pinning him to the ground.
"You don't know anything!" I spat.
He smirked and grabbed onto my shoulders. With one harsh roll, he managed to change our positions. The same cocky smirk hovered dangerously low over my face.
"But I do know, and you hate it. Don't you? You hate that, alas, there is someone out there who gets and understands you. There's someone out there who can appreciate your silent moments and your wild moments." He bent down so his lips were just a breath away from mine. "And you're terrified, aren't you?"
"St-stop," I pleaded, squirming against Troy's hold, but he had my arms pinned helplessly beside my head. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes and started to fall before I could muster the strength to hold them back. "Please. I can't do it to Ryan. I just can't! I know that he deserves better than me…so much better than me…"
"If you know that he deserves better than you, then why don't you leave him? Leave him before you hurt him too much and he ends up leaving you."
"I don't want to be alone!" I shouted, then quickly quieted my voice to a whisper as tears started to drip from my eyes. "I wouldn't be able to take it if I was alone."
"You're not alone, Gabriella. I'm here for you. I always will be," he whispered and cupped the side of my face in his hand.
I impulsively nuzzled into his hand, keeping my eyes locked on his. "Please."
Troy sighed, and just when I thought he was going to say something, captured my mouth in a searing kiss. Practically everything in my being screamed for me to give into him, to just wrap my arms around his neck, open my mouth, and let him have his way with me.
Then there was the other .01 percent of my being that screamed to shove him away. It was something I like to call a conscience. I don't know what took it so long to finally show up, but when it did I could feel it like a harsh kick to my gut.
I shoved Troy away from me with a gasp, hard enough to make him fall to the side in shock. He sputtered rather indignantly as he fell onto his ass, and looked at me with complete surprise written across his face. He as confused about everything as I was, that was for certain.
"Bri-Gabriella?"
I sighed, rubbing at my eyes and the tears forming in them in irritation. "I-I can't, Troy. I just can't."
He blinked and furrowed his brow in confusion. Tears formed in his forever deep eyes when he reached for me and I flinched away. "Gabriella. Please."
I wanted to go to him. God, how I wanted to go to him and wrap my arms around him, whispering that it was okay and we could stay together forever. But I knew that we were never meant to be and I couldn't bring myself to make those false promises.
"Troy, please. You just don't understand."
His eyes widened briefly in shock, but then narrowed slightly in anger. "Because I don't understand anything, right?"
"Troy…" I reached out to put a hand on his arm but he shoved it away.
"Stop, Gabriella!" he shouted, gripping his head in his hands. "Just stop, okay?"
I obeyed immediately. My entire body seemed to freeze up while I just sat and stared at him, waiting patiently for what he was going to say to me next.
After a few minutes Troy leaned forward silently and placed a soft kiss on my cheek before he stood. I watched his every move, etching his face and body into my mind as I did. He brushed the dirt from the back of his jeans and then turned to offer me a hand, which I took gratefully. When I was on my feet, Troy pulled me to him and hugged me tightly. He tried to kiss me when he pulled away, but I turned my face to the side.
"Please don't make this harder for me than it already is," I whispered.
He sighed, but slowly let me go. We stood in the clearing and stared deep into each others eyes for what felt like an eternity before Troy finally sighed and blinked, breaking the eye contact.
"I'll see you around," he said and turned away with a wave.
"Yeah…" I muttered and watched him walk away from me, tears that were unknown to me dripping from my eyes.
Though I had what I had thought I had wanted all along, there was now a deep hole in the centre of my chest and I knew what it was from. I couldn't help but wonder: 'Why didn't you just tell him?'
Sighing, I turned around and walked out of the grove of trees opposite of where Troy had exited, lost in my thoughts. Troy was gone, yes, but I had a feeling that my life was far from returning to normal.
Chapter 3… remember R&R
Kitty x
